Bank of America non-US wealth unit up for sale

Bank of AmericaMerrill Lynch has put its wealth management units outside the United States up for sale, three sources familiar with the situation said, hoping to bring in up to $3 billion for the sub-scale business.

Bank of America is the world’s largest wealth manager, but its non-U.S. arm – which two of the sources said manages some $90 billion of assets for rich clients – is not large enough to generate enough money for the U.S. bank.

“There is a lot of soul-searching going on by a lot of U.S. players as to what to do with their non-U.S. private banking operations,” said a fourth person, an investment banker who has knowledge of the financial sector.

But outside the United States, it has never been able to build up the business to match the scale of its home market, meaning it is far less profitable.

The bank had asked potential suitors to put in first-round bids this week, according to one of the three sources.

“The people I spoke to are not expecting this to be a particularly rapid process, just given the broad scope of the operations’ geography and the relative skinny information that was made available,” this person said.

Bank of America was looking to sell the unit as a whole and the deal could bring in up to $3 billion, this person said, or just over 3 percent of assets under management.

“Three percent of assets under management (is high) in Europe, but it is low in emerging markets. In Asia it is perfectly possible to raise 4 to 5 percent, and the same thing goes for Latin America,” the person said.